Woman's Hour - Brene Brown on emotions, Stepmums, Women in the Army, Poet Kim Moore, Morning after pill costs, Chef Ravinder Bhogal

Episode Date: December 4, 2021

Brené Brown's Tedx talk 'The Power of Vulnerablity' is one of the most viewed talks in the world with more than 50 million views. Her new book 'The Atlas of the Heart' takes on a journey through 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. Photo credit: Randal Ford. Calls for Boots, the chemist to permanently reduce the price of the morning after pill. With campaigner Rosie Stokes, and the Labour MP Diana Johnson.More than 4,000 women gave evidence to the Defence Sub-Committee on Women in the Armed Forces for its landmark inquiry, which was published earlier this year. This week the Ministry of Defence responded to the recommendations from that inquiry. We heard from Sarah Atherton, Conservative MP and Chair of the Defence Sub Committee.Raising awareness of the complexities and realities of being a stepmum today, with Katie Harrison, host of a a new podcast 'You're Not My Mum: The Stepmum's Side' and Suzie Hayman, a counsellor and spokesperson for the parenting charity Family Lives and author of 'Be A Great Step-Parent.'The poet Kim Moore on her new collection 'All the Men I Never Married'. Alternative Christmas food ideas with the chef and restauranter Ravinder Bhogal. She shares her houghts on creating some rich adaptations of everything from brussel sprouts and ham to samosas and mathi.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Dianne McGregorPhoto credit: Randal Ford

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The best bits from the week just gone selected just for you. In a moment, the Brené Brown talking about emotions. Also calls for Boots the Chemist to reduce the price of the morning after pill and the realities of being a step mum. Step mumming in my case is never talked about. You know, one in 10 kids in the UK lives in a step family, but we just don't talk about it. I mean, nobody kind of grows up and thinks, I really hope I'm a step mum when I grow up. We'll also be speaking with Kim Moore on the collection of poems about men that she had

relationships with, but never married, and alternative Christmas food ideas with chef Ravinda Bogle. Warning, you will be hungry by the end of the programme. But first, Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston, has always called herself a mapmaker. And in her sixth and newest book, The Atlas of the Heart, out this week, she takes us on a journey through 87 of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. Her TEDx talk, The Power of Vulnerability, is one of the top five most viewed TEDx talks in the world with more than 50 million views. In the opening of her book, she talks about her childhood in Texas and how in her family, no one spoke about emotions of any kind.

She's identified 87 different emotions and experiences in the book. I started by asking her what she meant by the term emotional granularity. On average, up until recently, our research showed that we can name and label about three emotions accurately, happy, sad, and angry. That means every nuanced feeling that we have, disappointment, resentment, dread, worry, wonder, awe, we shove into these three big crude buckets. So emotional granularity is the ability to get very specific about what we're feeling, and not just my research, but other researchers around the world show that the more granular we are in our ability to name what we're experiencing, the better we can manage it, regulate it, move through it. If it's a positive emotion, we can replicate it in our lives.

Emotional granularity, highly correlated with very positive living outcomes. We've all heard of the angry woman trope. It's often seen as a negative emotion, one that's unfeminine, one that girls are actively encouraged not to feel. But on Woman's Hour, particularly this year, we have talked a lot about anger because women are feeling angry. So is it a good emotion? Is it a bad emotion? I mean, I'm in Texas. I'm enraged. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it is a necessary emotion. The thing that we need to get away from is labeling emotions good or bad. They just are. And here's the thing about anger. For a long time, I, along with some other researchers, wondered if anger was a legitimate primary emotion or was

always a secondary emotion covering something else. And 91% of emotion researchers today believe that anger is a primary emotion. It can often cover things. For everyone listening, how much easier is it to say, I'm so angry, then I'm hurt. I'm disappointed or I'm sad. Those are harder. But let me tell you about anger. Anger is a beautiful, necessary catalyst for change. But anger needs to ignite something. It's a terrible lifetime companion, but it is a very important catalyst to change. When we see something that is unfair, unjust, lacks equity, our response of anger is what fuels change. But to stay in it perpetually, it's a lot of physical, emotional, spiritual costs. It made me think about how different communities, women of color, marginalized people can express emotion and how you can communicate how you're

feeling when sometimes you can be told that your feeling is invalid and that trope of angry black woman, angry brown woman, and how damaging that can be to those people who are trying to express their emotion. I mean, I hate to be a bumper sticker, but look, if you're not angry, you're not paying attention. And one of the things that really shifted for me in this book was this idea about our ability to read emotion in other people. And I don't think we can do it. I thought that we could do it for 20 years. I used to say, man, we just need to build skills around recognizing emotion and self and others. And I don't think we can do it, actually. I think emotion is biology, biography, behavior,

backstory. It's too complex. So when we see someone enraged, when we see someone angry, we see someone hurting. I think we have to get curious, listen, become stewards of the stories they tell us about their experiences and believe them, even when their stories don't reflect our lived experiences. I mean, I think one of the things I always ask myself and I ask other people all the time is that when you see people enraged and angry and hurt, what do you have to tell yourself to make that okay? What is the narrative that you have to engage in when you see the Syrian refugees, when you see, you know, in the US, the police brutality, especially towards Black men. What is it that you have to say to yourself to make this okay? And is it the fear of discomfort? Is it the fear of complicity? Is it the fear to acknowledge privilege? Is it the fear of closing the door on an idea that this country is not what you thought it was, and the system is actually not broken. It's

working exactly how it was designed, which I believe is the case. And so look, Anita, I think one of the reasons we're so disconnected from each other is that we are so untethered from ourselves. And I think if we're going to find our way back to each other, we're going to have to find our way back to ourselves first. And we're going to have to find our way back to ourselves first. And we're going to have to find some humanity in ourselves so that we can embrace the humanity and pain of other people. Yes. Look inside. Look inside what's going on with you before you start pointing and putting it all out there. One of the sections that really stood out for me was belonging, where you talk about diversity, equality, and inclusion, and belonging as a

critical component. And you talk about something called belonging uncertainty. It all ties in with what you're talking about. Yeah. I mean, the greatest barrier of belonging that emerged from our research over the past 20 years is fitting in. Our yearning to be a part of something, to be seen and to be included is so primal, so hardwired that often we confuse fitting in with belonging. We come to a place in our lives where it's a very vulnerable place. It's scary as hell, where we realize that belonging never asks us to change who we are, but it demands that we be who we are. So when we talk about diversity, inclusion, and equity in organizations and cultures and neighborhoods and schools, it's so important, but we can't forget belonging. We can't forget that it's not about headcount.

It's about seeing the humanity in each other and in ourselves and saying i see you i hear you i value you you belong here but we've become so polarized haven't we oh we've got really scary i mean i'm not saying that we have a white male problem i'm saying we have a white male power over problem. It's about the type of power that's being wielded right now in this country. And I think that probably the same is true in yours is really making a last stand. And the issue here is about power. It's the belief that power is finite and that it's like pizza. If I give you a slice, I have less. As opposed to what we really know is true about power, that when shared, it becomes infinite. But there is really a dramatic, violent, dangerous last stand happening right now.

And last stands are scary. They are scary. And you actually talk about we're living in a culture of contempt. Oh yeah, contempt is wow, what an emotion. It's worse than anger. Like if you're angry with me, I'm like, okay, well, Anita's really pissed off at me, but I'm still engaged.

Contempt is dismissing. You have been dismissed. You're not even worthy of the argument. So contempt is the fastest corrosion of relationship. But also politically in our culture on a macro level, we hold so much contempt for each other. And let me tell you something. I consider myself to be a very self-aware. I've evolved a lot. But like right now with this new variant of COVID, I go into like terrible five-year-old contempt for people not

getting vaccinated. You know, like I just feel content, not even anger. So what do you say to yourself when you feel that? Well, for me, because I'm a person of faith, I can lean into my faith. You know, I just say to myself, my challenge is to find God in the face of everyone I meet. Sometimes I got to look really hard. Another bit is, and it's all kind of in the same section, is nostalgia, which I often thought was just a lovely state to be in. But you describe it as a double-edged sword. I thought nostalgia was great. I just think about our childhoods and those lovely little memories that we have, whether they're real or imagined. It's just a good place to go. But actually, you say it's a double-edged sword. Well, I think it's both. And it's interesting

because I swung too far the other way and I thought nostalgia was just period dangerous. But I really wrestled with that because there's this great scene in Ratatouille, the movie, where the food critic comes in and the little rat chef makes him ratatouille and everyone's like, oh my God, this is a food critic and you're going to serve him a peasant dish. And they lay him ratatouille. And everyone's like, oh my God, this is a food critic. And you're going to serve him a peasant dish. And they lay the ratatouille in front of the food critic. And he's drawn so menacingly.

And he takes a bite. And in a second, he's five. He's standing at the back door of his home. He looks like he's been in a bike accident or something. He's kind of bruised and skinned up. And he's crying. And his mom pulls him to her bosom and comforts him and then sits him down at the kitchen table and serves him ratatouille.

And then the food critic's crying. So there is this beautiful part of nostalgia. So as it turns out, there's two parts of nostalgia. There's this one that's this beautiful, what you were describing, the ratatouille scene, this reflective part. But then there's also the form of nostalgia that can be a dog whistle for everything from white supremacy to the oppression of people of color to the oppression of women. It can be kind of the way things used to be, hard stop, when people knew their place. And so like, you know, Make America Great Again was an entire brilliantly constructed nostalgia foundation campaign. And

actually recalling an America that never existed. In the 50s, rates of domestic violence were much higher than they are now. Addiction rates were, you know, really bad. But so I think what researchers have found, and I'm so grateful for this, the difference between a healthy, pleasant nostalgia and kind of a dangerous dog whistle nostalgia is rumination. When we ruminate on the way things used to be, and we're like, oh, now it's unfair and they're after me and who are these people getting ahead? You do talk about positive emotions in the book and you talk about joy and happiness and the connection between the two and you call them an intriguing upward spiral, which I love. So where do we find the joy and the happiness? I don't think you start with those. I think you start with gratitude and you think about what are you truly grateful for

in your life and what do you need to do to practice gratitude around that? Not just have an attitude of gratitude, but literally practice it. And then I think you think, how do I invite more of it in? So for me, playing tennis, family dinners, laughing with my sisters, I'm so grateful for those things. Then what am I doing on a daily basis so that my choices reflect bringing more of that into my life? So much for us to think about there. Brene Brown talking about emotions and how we express ourselves and what brings us joy. Heather wrote in to say, agree wholeheartedly with the need to own and express all of our emotions. To shut them out, put a positive spin on things is dishonest and at a deeper level based on fear. Now, it's probably the most familiar chemist on our high streets.

Boots. It's in the firing line from campaigners, including 26 Labour MPs who say that it should reduce the price it charges for the morning after pill. They've got boots in their sights because for Black Friday, boots halved the price of the morning after pill and now campaigners want the reduced price to become permanent. Labour MP Diana Johnson joined Emma along with Rose Stokes, a freelance journalist and one of the campaigners. I came across the advert while researching another article, saw that they were offering the morning after pill for 50% discount and shared it to my social media. Obviously, it's quite a political conversation, like the cost of the morning after pill comes up and up in the news.

I shared it and the response went viral and the response indicated to me that this was a big issue that a lot of people wanted to talk about and so we thought that now given that boots have obviously demonstrated that they can afford to sell the morning after at half the price um we're taking the opportunity to ask them not to put the price back up again um and i'm working with the british pregnancy advisory service b pass um who are also on the campaign and they sort of helped organize it i'll come together i'll come back to the campaign overall in just a moment because this isn't the first time there has been campaigns around different providers also to slash the price, which BPUS, as you mentioned, have also been involved in before.

But we did get a statement from Boots which said, the Black Friday promotion ran on our online doctor hub. It was 50% off all men's and women's private healthcare services. We sometimes offer short-term promotions to raise awareness of certain services, but it's not usually possible to sustain significant discounts in the long term our pricing model takes into account expert clinical advice consultations and prices are in line with other high street pharmacies what do you make of that rose i guess the point is that

online there are services that are selling the morning after pill for three pounds or four pounds, I think. I just think that a pharmacy of that scale, if there are other companies that are managing to sell it for that cheap, why can't Boots? We should say it's gone from £15.99 to £8 during this. Let's bring in Diana. You sent a letter this weekend accusing Boots of being sexist. Is that right? Yes, we did. Along with a number of Labour women MPs. You're absolutely right that this has been an issue before. I think in 2017, Sharon Hodgson, who was the shadow public health minister, did a lot of work on this. But we are really concerned for all the reasons that have just been outlined about the cost of the emergency contraception from boots. And as you say, boots is, you know, on almost every high street.

It's a well-recognized brand. You know, we've got a lot of time for boots, but we just want them to do the right thing. And I think as well as Labour MPs, we're also very conscious that, you know, over the past 11 years, women's access to contraception has sadly reduced down, you know, being able to access it either at a GP or a sexual health clinic. You can, sorry, just... Because of the fragmentation of the NHS and cuts to public health funding. So we want

to make sure that we can access funding when they need it. Sorry, but just to be factual for a moment, just to be factual, Diana, that you can get the morning after pill for free from a GP or a sexual health clinic, can't you? Yes, but the problem is about access. And I chair a group in Parliament called the All Party Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health. And we produced a report in September 2020 looking at access to contraception. And we are really concerned in that report because of the reduction in access over the past few years. And obviously with COVID, that's obviously had an impact.

So what we say is that we would like it to be free, contraception free, including emergency contraception, because we know Public Health England have produced a figure saying for every one pound that the state spends on contraception, you save nine pounds in public um public spending public service spending so this is something that we think is is really important but boots could do the right thing on this and reach and keep this price reduction at the figure that they've reduced it down through um black friday and over the weekend it's my understanding you you tell me though uh Diana or Rose, the previous part of this campaign, as mentioned in 2017, did see a cut in price at some other providers.

It just hasn't been at the largest or most recognisable chemist. I think that's right, yes. And I think this is an ongoing issue and we don't understand why women are having to pay this extra amount on medicines that they need, really. And that's the issue with boots. You know, we want them to do the right thing. Let me bring in Rose.

Yeah, I was going to say, there was a slight reduction from boots. Essentially, all of the other high street pharmacies reduced their price. And then a group of Labour MPs contacted boots. And boots initially said at the time that they didn't want to incentivise improper use of the morning after pill was their excuse for not lowering it eventually. They caved in to pressure. They did reduce it a little bit, but it's still, to my mind, an inaccessible cost for a lot of people at £16. Yes, there was that row about it. And thank you for bringing that back into people's minds in

case they're thinking, have I heard this before? What happened last time and what's happening now? Of course, Rose, there will be people thinking you don't have to go to boot. You can go elsewhere. There are other ways of doing it. Yes, access may be difficult, but there are other ways of accessing it for completely for free. People have choice. That is the market. What do you say to that, Rose? I think that it's a fairly narrow view to assume that a lot of people have the time. I mean, obviously, it's very difficult to get a GP appointment. As we know, sexual health clinics have been closed across the country in the past few years. That's assuming that you have the time to go and wait in a sexual health clinic.

Ultimately, 85% of people, according to Boots' website, live within 10 minutes of a Boots. Maybe they've got childcare responsibilities. Maybe they have to go to a work at like a zero hours contract where they can't just take a day off to go and queue for the morning after pill. Ultimately, Boots is the place where a lot of people are going to go. And I just think that we should be trying to break down barriers to access for people that need it rather than making it difficult for them. Rose Stokes and Diana Johnson speaking with Emma. If you'd like to get in touch with us about anything you hear on the programme then you can email us by going to our website or go to our social media

It's at BBC Women's Hour Now the Ministry of Defence aims to double women recruits in the military to 30% by 2030 Just one announcement following a report into the bullying and harassment of women in the armed services. More than 4,000 women gave evidence to the Defence Subcommittee on Women in the Armed Forces for its landmark inquiry, which was published earlier this year. It made for grim reading, with women experiencing bullying, harassment and discrimination during their careers. In its response to that report published on Thursday, the government said the inquiry made clear that on too many occasions, defence has failed to provide women with the experience they deserve. Krupa Paddy spoke to the chairwoman of the subcommittee, MP Sarah Atherton.

Women had been I was in the army in the 80s, whether I'd chair a subcommittee to look into really what was going wrong and why recruitment targets were consistently being missed. What we didn't anticipate was what then came. We had four and a half, sorry, 4,200 pieces of evidence submitted about the lived experiences of women in the military, with some harrowing stories ranging from rape, bullying, intimidation and harassment, and all the way down to more minor issues like how women felt undervalued in their role in the military. So we decided to look into that further. And of course, the MOD have responded today, as you've mentioned. And as the only female Member of Parliament who served in

the army, how shocked were you by these findings? I was shocked. I was a little disappointed that since I was in the army in the 80s, things hadn't really progressed. For example, women have been on the front line for many, many years now, and yet their equipment and their clothing that they are issued to do the work of the government to protect our country are designed for men and are ill-fitting and actually compromise operational effectiveness. So I was shocked at that level that things hadn't progressed. But what really impacted on myself was the issues around rape, harassment and bullying and how that was quite endemic within the military today. So we're at a stage where the government has agreed with most of your recommendations and we are going to unpick what their response has been but how has their response left you feeling? I'm actually quite delighted. They've certainly shown a commitment.

They've acknowledged there is a problem. That is a big step for the military, the MOD to make. They've acknowledged it's a problem and they have made some serious commitments to the future of women in the military. They've certainly set a target of increasing recruitment to 30% by 2030. And this is all ringing good bells for me, mainly because we really need to show our service women that they are valued. And I think the response we've had this morning

from the Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, it's quite a thorough response, And it certainly shows an ongoing commitment to our service women and veterans. Now, I said that the government agreed with most of your recommendations. A key recommendation that they haven't agreed with, though, is that allegations of rape and sexual assault should be heard in a civilian court. They say allegations like that should still be heard in a military court. They say allegations like that should still be heard in a military court. Has that left you disappointed? Yes, I think disappointed is probably a good word. You know, murder, manslaughter, serious sexual assault and rape will continue to be heard primarily in the military court. However,

on Monday, the Armed Forces Bill will look at what they call concurrent jurisdiction, which gives scope for the service and public prosecutors to overrule this rule. So cases can, in certain circumstances, be heard in a civilian court. But this is something I'm going to watch very closely with interest. And the Defence Select Committee will be reviewing progress on these recommendations as we go forward. That's encouraging to hear. And according to this report, the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, wants to see women as part of that court martial process. Does that make things any better? Yes, Ben Wallace has gone one step further and has added extra recommendations. So he's going to mandate a female on all court martial hearings relating to

sexual offences. He's going to introduce a new sexual exploitation and abuse policy around transactional sex workers. And he's going to hold an international conference to look at the issues that women face in the military in 2022, which I'm very pleased about because I have been engaged with the Australian and US governments who are doing similar studies at the moment. The report does not state clearly how it's going to deal with anyone found to have committed sexual offences or have behaved in an unacceptable way. A huge point of interest here. They say there'll be a review into how to dismiss offenders or discharge them. That just doesn't sound

good enough. Well, the response does say that it's going to look at and review how to dismiss and discharge personnel who are found wanting and are not meeting the expectations that they should be exhibiting. So there is some review in that. There's a lot of reviewing in this response. And one thing I want to do is to make sure that when they put something in place, it actually has an impact on the ground and it is making positive changes. So this is something I'll be looking at. This is something that I had requested. I want to be able to have mechanisms

in place that measure success of the policies and initiatives they put in place. It's a little weak on that front. So this is something I'll be looking at to make sure that they are honouring what they're saying they're going to do. The last time we spoke to you, the complaints procedure and the chain of command related to that was of huge concern to you and the other guests that we had on. When it comes to complaints of bullying, harassment and discrimination, the MOD has agreed there needs to be more independence. Independence, that feels like a rather ambiguous phrase. I mean, is this another sign of progress?

What does that even mean in practice? Now, this is where we have our main success because the chain of command has been removed from all complaints and allegations of a sexual nature so now a service personnel not necessarily a woman man as well can download a complaints form they submit that form to the single service service complaint secretariat then this is all new ground that's going to be introduced. And this is going to be overseen by a diversity and inclusion directorate. This is a new directorate who are going to look at admissibility decisions. And that's going to be made within a centralised service team.

This is all very new and progressive stuff. Investigations are now going to be undertaken by an independent outsourced investigations unit. And this is all in addition to the Defence Serious Crimes Unit and the development of a rape and serious offensive strategy. So this is, you know, making very positive progressive steps on behalf of the MOD to address some of the issues raised in our inquiry. I can hear how encouraged you are by that response, Sarah. Another area which at least comes across as progressive, this new target to get more women into the army, 30% more by 2030.

I mean, it's easy to forget that it's only been three years since 2018 that women have been able to apply for all roles in the armed forces. What do you make of that? I'm a big advocate of women in the military. I think it's a great target to have. It's showing ambition. It is ambitious.

It's showing commitment by the MOD and the Secretary of State, Ben Wallace. And for people like me in Parliament, it gives me a target in which I can hold the MOD to account. I like the idea of this target. We need more women. We need more diversity. We need more inclusion.

So, yeah, I'm reassured by the target. 30% more women. How are they going to achieve this, though? Well, I think they've got to start looking at, as they are going to do, wraparound childcare, women's health issues, valuing women more. Most women tend to leave the army around eight to nine years into service and a high proportion usually leave within a few years of coming back from maternity leave. So they've got to embrace a modern military that

is also of the correct standard and operationally functional. And they can easily do that. And they are doing that by looking at women's health policies. And as we said before, about equipment and terms and conditions of service. So this is going quite a large way to embracing that. And when all these recommendations are implemented and the recommendations of the Wigston and the Lions Review are implemented. It's certainly going to improve the lot of women in the military. And the military, as we go forward, is transformational. It's very progressive. It's very interesting. There are a lot of jobs now open, a lot of interesting areas that the military are going into, like cyber and space. And I'm really encouraged by all this, and I'm sure women will want to join.

That was the chairwoman of the subcommittee, MP Sarah Atherton. Now, many of us have probably scribbled a poem to past boyfriends or lovers, but imagine writing a whole book of poems dedicated to them. Well, the poet Kim Moore has done just that with her new collection, All the Men I Never Married. She spoke to Chloe Tilly. It started really as a joke. I thought I'll just write a poem that's a list of all of my ex-boyfriends.

So it was really kind of a way of poking fun at myself. And then I started to think, after I wrote that poem, I thought I should write a poem for each of them. But then I didn't quite manage that because I quickly worked out that some ex-boyfriends didn't really deserve a whole poem. But then it kind of expanded and I thought any poem with a man in could be in All the Men I Never Married. So it got a bit out of control, probably how it happened.

Now, I know that you're going to read us a poem and the first one you're going to read to us. It's a kind of list of those men, isn't it? Can we have listen yeah this is all the men i never married number one there was the boy i met on the park who tasted of humbugs and wore a mustard yellow jumper and the kickboxer with beautiful long brown hair that he tied with a band at the nape of his neck and the one who had a constant ear infection so i always sat on his left. And the guy who worked in an office and could only afford to fill up his car with two pounds worth of petrol. And the trumpet player I loved from the moment I saw him, dancing to the Rolling Stones. And the guy who smoked weed and got more and more paranoid, whose fingers flickered and danced when he talked, and the one whose eyes were two

pieces of winter sky, and a music producer, long-legged and full of opinions, and more trumpet players, one who was too short and not him, one who was too thin and not him. Are you judging me yet? Are you surprised? Let me tell you of the ones I never kissed, or who never kissed me, the trombonist I went drinking with, how we lay twice a week in each other's beds, like two unlit candles. We were not for each other, and in this we were wise. We were only moving through the world together for a time. There was a double bassist who stood behind me, and angled the body of his bass into mine and shadowed my hands on its neck and all I could feel was heat from his skin and the lightest breath and even this might have been imagined. I want to say to them now that all we are to each other is ghosts, once you were all that I thought of. When I whisper your names, it isn't a curse or a spell or a blessing.

I'm not mourning your passing or calling you here. This is something harder, like walking alone in the dusk and the leaves. This is the naming of trees. This is a series of flames. This is watching you all disappear. Kim, thank you. When I listen to that, I mean, it kind of takes me back and makes me think about, you know, past loves and relationships. When you read these, well, particularly that poem at Poetry Readings, is that the kind of reaction you get? What do people say? Yeah, I've had some interesting reactions.

So definitely that, that women come up and say, oh, it's reminded me of such and such person. But the first time I read it was at the Grange Over Sands Luncheon Club, which is a glamorous, a glamorous event. And when I got to the line, are you surprised? Are you judging me yet? An elderly woman looked up from her soup and shouted, yes. I thought it was funny, but it was also it's quite disconcerting to kind of get heckled halfway through. I then read it at Huddersfield University as part of a lecture series. And someone in the I told that story and someone in the audience put their hands up and said, what would your reaction be if at that moment in the poem? Are you surprised? Are you judging me yet? Someone shouted no.

And I started to realise then that actually the first person that's judging me for that list is myself because of the use of the word yet are you judging me yet I'm judging myself and kind of inviting the audience to to join in with that almost so yeah so I then started to think about how often like moments of sexism and kind of cross over with desire when women talk about past boyfriends. And how we judge ourselves, as you say. Yeah, how we're kind of complicit in it as well. Now, I know that you're going to read us another poem now, Kim, and this is, I guess it's about kind of an early experience

of feeling desired, those kind of strange teenage years aren't they i guess yeah so i suppose this one is more there's other poems in the book which are exploring moments of sexism so moments that we that are kind of got nothing at the heart so they're things that stay with us probably i'll remember this for the rest of my life but i didn't quite remember i didn't understand why i remembered it so i wanted to to write a poem to see what happens when you put the white space of a poem around an experience of sexism. So this isn't a boyfriend, ex-boyfriend poem. This is All the Men I Never Married, number seven.

Imagine you're me, you're 15, the summer of 95 and you're following your sister onto the log flume where you'll sit between the legs of a stranger at the bottom of the drop when you've screamed and been splashed by the water when you're about to stand up clamber out the man behind reaches forward and with the back of his knuckle brushes a drop of water from your thigh. To be touched like that for the first time and you are not innocent. You're 15. Something in you likes that you were chosen. It feels like power though you are only the one who was touched, who was acted upon. To realise that someone can touch you without asking, without speaking,

without knowing your name, without anybody seeing. You pretend that nothing has happened. You turn it to nothing. You learn that nothing is necessary armour you must carry with you. It was nothing. You must have imagined it. To be touched and your parents waiting at the exit and smiling as you come out of the dark and the moment being hardly worth telling. What am I saying? You're 15 and he is a man. Imagine being him on that rare day of summer. The bulge of car keys makes it difficult to sit so he gives them to a board attendant who chucks them in a box marked property a girl balanced in the boat with hair to her waist and he's close

enough to smell the cream lifting in waves from her skin her legs stretched out and why should he tell himself no hold himself back he reaches forward brushes her thigh with a knuckle, then gets up to go, rocking the boat as he leaves. You don't remember his face or his clothes, just the drop of water, perfectly formed on your thigh, before it's lifted up and away by his finger. You remember this lesson, your whole life, that sliver, shiver of time, that moment in the sun. What am I saying? Nothing. Nothing happened. Was that difficult to write? No, I think that's, well, it was, I suppose it was difficult in that a poem is difficult to kind of construct. But going back to that memory, that memory didn't traumatize me or make me

scared of going anywhere on my own or but it kind of stuck in my mind for a long time and I had to write the poem to understand why it was sticking in my mind and really it's about learning at a very young age that that your body is as a young woman can feel like public property sometimes that those things can happen and and there's nothing you feel like there's nothing you can do about it so I'd never told anyone until I wrote the poem um I actually had a conversation with my twin sister when the book came out and she read that poem and she said I did see but I didn't I didn't say anything so I've spent all these years thinking that nobody knew and nobody saw and it was was this kind of strange, secret moment.

But she saw as well, but didn't know what to do. And that's the thing, isn't it? I guess lots of women listening to this will relate to that. And that line, nothing, nothing happened. It sticks with many of us. Yeah, I think when I started to look back, a lot of the things that I was thinking of as oh it was just a weird um moment of sexism I realized sexism is actually a really

slippery term and I was using it as a catch-all for so I started writing poems about these moments that I was thinking of as nothing and realizing actually that was that's a poem poem about a near assault or um that's quite a you know that's a poem about a near assault or that's a poem about an ex-boyfriend who was actually a stalker and that's really disturbing. So often I would look back and write these poems and think that I was just joking around and then realise actually what I've written is quite dark and I think thinking of it as nothing or laughing about it

is a coping mechanism and it's a way, it's a coping mechanism and it's a way of minimising what's happened because it's a lot to carry. I think of them as like little paper cuts, these moments. They don't stop you going out and doing anything, but they change the way that you move through the world. Kim Moore speaking to Chloe Tilly. Now, a new podcast, You're Not My Mum, The Stepmum Side,

was launched last week on BBC Sounds. To discuss the complexities and realities of being a modern stepmum, Creeper Paddy was joined by Susie Heyman, who's a counsellor and spokesperson for the parenting charity Family Lives and author of Be a Great Stepparent, and Katie Harrison, who's the host of You're Not My Mum podcast. She started by asking, how did the podcast come about? I was driving along and listening to the radio and I heard about a podcast award in memory of Rachel Bland the presenter from Radio 5 and the brief

of the award was find a topic that really should be talked about but that isn't talked about because as I'm sure many of your listeners know Rachel was behind You, Me and the Big C which is a podcast to really change the way that cancer was spoken about so one of the things that was done in her memory was to launch an award to find topics to raise awareness on things that aren't really talked about so I heard this when I was driving along in the car and thought well step mumming in my case is never talked about um you know one in 10 kids in the UK lives in a step family but we we just don't talk about it and so sort of blindly entered this competition obviously not expecting to win and here we are well congratulations on that win clearly a very important subject that so many people want to talk about.

We've also had some responses from our listeners. Susie, let me come to you. You're also a stepmum. In fact, you're now a stepgrandmother. There are so many myths, aren't there, linked to being a stepmum, some linked to age-old fairy tales. That cultural narrative is very hard to escape. Yes, the wicked stepmother is absolutely in everybody's mind you know when you become this and this is i think why we don't talk about it much because

it's an area of shame and and a bit of a puzzlement as who you really are my stepson vividly remembers talking about me he's always called me by my name or his version of it not suzy but sus i'm sus to him he's always talked to me about about me in that way and was corrected rather smartly in primary school by a teacher who said, you know, who is she? What is this sus? And he said, well, you know, my father's partner. Auntie Susie, you call her Auntie Susie. No, I'm not an auntie. I'm actually, I'm a lot more and maybe a lot less. about labels sometimes are very difficult because if you go by stepmom as katie will know you find yourself with this freight of of an expectation and myth and difficulties and one of the two things that i've always found with stepfamilies is that in a sense a lot of the issues that we have

are to do with being a stepfamily i have a list of all the 14 chapters in one of my books the heading of everyone is one of the important issues that we face that are different from being in an ordinary family, in a first time family. But an awful lot of what goes on is just family stuff. So when you've got a toddler kicking off or a teenager behaving in a teenager way, actually, it could be more about being a toddler or a teenager than anything to do with step family issues. Let me bring you this response, though, that we've had from a listener, a texter, because some people do find that stereotype that we talk about is true. She writes, unfortunately, my children's experience of a stepmother has been very negative. They are young adults now, so have chosen not to go to their father and stepmother's house.

However, when they were younger and stayed at the weekends, sometimes a warm welcome was never offered. They were made to say thank you for having me at the end of their stay. It fills me with pain that my children had to endure that. And Katie, reading that, I thought of a line in the opening of your podcast where you talk about your joy bringing others pain. Yeah. And, you know, I'm I'm also a biological mum and my own child has a stepmom. So it's painful for everybody. Nobody nobody expects their child to grow up having a stepmom. So, yes, it's it's a very, very challenging situation. And I think for various people who have grown up with a stepmother where they're, you know, where it hasn't always been easy.

You know, I have nothing but empathy I think what as society is important for us to understand is that there's a lot more often going on beneath the surface rather than a stepmom who seems a little bit grumpy so what what we hear a lot of the time from stepmoms is you know they feel like they're treading on eggshells in their home they feel tense they're very worried about sort of the things that might go wrong and they don't feel that they can relax and obviously then it's sort of a perfect cocktail because the children can pick up on that the children maybe don't feel welcome but it's because the stepmom's feeling anxious and then suddenly you end up with a really dysfunctional family environment which nobody feels um comfortable in you know we know from research that consistently stepmothers report

poorer mental health in terms of more anxiety and more depression than biological mothers or fathers. And it really, really is a difficult role. And for the person who contacted, you know, it's really, really sad that her children have been in that situation. But, you know, there's always a lot more going on beneath the surface. What can step parents do to make sure children feel comfortable and to make this relationship work? I think to begin with is actually recognising what's going on. I absolutely keyed into what Kate said about my joy is somebody else's pain. And that's one of the things you have to recognise, that when you come into a step family, whoever's coming in or whether you're joining a step family,

the point is that the joy that you would feel as the adult, oh, it's a new start, we're happy, we're married, yippee, you know, you often insult it happily, is the nail in the coffin to those children's idea of the, you know, the original unit. And so if you can recognise at least, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be any more joyful, but it's at least recognising they have a different view on what is going on, and therefore a different agenda for what they want. And it's about talking about it. It's about recognising sometimes. So what you can do perhaps is at least recognising

this must be difficult for you. You must have some feelings about this. Even with a very young child, you can at least be managing to talk about the fact that you have different attitudes and this must be hard for them. And can they at least maybe talk about it? Katie, one of the ways often used these days to describe stepfamilies is blended families. Kate

Ferdinand this week on Instagram, who has become a step-parent through her own relationship with Rio Ferdinand, announced that she is launching a platform called Blended for other families in a similar position because she felt so isolated when she took on that role. The language around stepmothers is so important, so influential. And I know, Katie, you don't like the word blended. First of all, tell us why and how do you describe your own family? I personally don't really connect with the word blended for two reasons. One, it feels like you're trying to put a lot of pressure on something

to make it perfect and make it all gel together really instantly. And, you know, families aren't like that. The children might not want to gel instantly. They might be very torn about things. So I think the word blended can put too much pressure on us. And secondly, it takes away from the fact that a lot of the time, because stepfamilies tend to be formed from separation rather than death now, it takes away from the fact that actually they have another home and they have another family.

So that's why for me, the word blended is quite problematic however it's obviously important for everybody to use the language that they're comfortable with and it's brilliant that Kate's launched a platform to raise more awareness about some of the challenges that stepfamilies go through in terms of how I describe my family so you know you know, I never wanted to be called a stepmom. I mean, nobody kind of grows up and thinks, I really hope I'm a stepmom when I grow up. But when I kind of met my partner, his children were young and they wanted labels. They wanted to understand, OK, well, who are you and what's your role? And as much as they call me by my name and as much as I didn't necessarily want that label, that's the label

that I got. And I've always felt if I refer to them as my partner's kids, it sounds quite cold and detached. Whereas if you kind of say my stepdaughter, it sounds a bit warmer. But again, you know, I just say my family. Everybody knows that my family's, you know, a mix of all sorts of people. And that's great. But But generally it is quite problematic language wise. And Susie, how do you describe your family makeup? I absolutely agree with you, Katie. We're families. We might be families who are a different shape from what you think of as a traditional one, but there are a lot of us around there. And sometimes a lot of anger and upset and pain is involved, but sometimes a lot of joy.

I mean, my stepson will say to you that it was a second chance. It was actually, you know, it made him have a much better relationship, me being around with his father, and it always has. And you mentioned that I was a step-grandmother. I'm not. I'm a grandmother. That's how they introduced it when they said they were pregnant. I'm a grandmother. Susie and katie harrison from the podcast you're not my mum the stepmom side and lots of you got in touch on the subject megan says my stepmom is absolutely incredible i can't imagine what our lives would be like without her and feel such gratitude to her every day my dad has three children all from different mothers not hers and she's been a true

angel and dear friend through all our lives and Isabella says I'm 21 years old I have a stepmother and a step-grandmother I grew up not really being able to tell the difference between my maternal granny and my maternal step-grandmother other than the terms I called them I have a stepmother who is generally incredible and has done an amazing job not overstepping the boundaries between mothering and step-mothering whenever I do get annoyed by my stepmother I'll often although I probably shouldn't complain to my biological Now over the next few Fridays on Woman's Hour, we are going to be looking at alternative Christmas food ideas and who better to start off with than Ravinda Bogle,

journalist, chef and owner of Joconi, her restaurant in London. Moving to the UK from Kenya aged seven, she's always challenged traditional notions of food preparation. She's here to share her thoughts on creating some rich adaptations of things such as Brussels sprouts or ham as well as samosas and be warned, your stomachs will rumble. we were small well we always had the turkey um but always done with a different kind of rub so um you know spices and spices in the brine and you know maybe i remember i recall my mother covering it in yogurt and thanduri paste and doing it that way standard Standard. And then the ham.

My father loved ham. He studied in England in the 60s and 70s. So he had this sort of nostalgia about gammon and pineapple. So my mother would cook this huge ham and she would cover it with a mixture of jaggery. She'd make like a caramel out of the jaggery with tamarind and star anise and ginger, garlic, chilli, cover it all and then slow cook it. And that just tasted incredible. And, you know, last year I did a ham

and I did it with a jerk paste and served it with a homemade mango chutney. And it's just joyful. And then, of course, all the sides and Brussels sprouts. I mean, I couldn't believe people in this country were so sort of um divided about brussels sprouts because for a girl coming from kenya they were just so exotic i've never seen them these cute little baby cabbages and i just absolutely loved them and over the years i've've sort of cooked them in various ways. And then when I opened Joconi our first Christmas, I was like, right, I'm putting Brussels sprouts on the menu.

So what did you do? Come on. There's lots of people going, come on. There's nothing you can do to a Brussels sprout to make it tasty. I mean, I love Brussels sprouts. So what's your recipe, Ravinda? I'm taking notes. My recipe is to firstly, it's the way you cook them so we

char them so lots of butter in a pan get the butter really nice and hot and then in go the kind of halved brussels sprouts cook them until they're really really kind of brown and um charred and then you make a dressing a hot and sour dressing with fish sauce, tamarind, chili, garlic and jaggery or palm sugar. And you put that over the hot Brussels sprouts. We just soak in all that flavor. Chestnuts. And then you take the chestnut and you grate it almost like parmesan, raw chestnut all over the Brussels sprouts. And then ongo bonito flakes, which are this kind of um spanish or japanese use it's like a a dried tuna and it's these thin flakes and what you get is these intensely bitter brussels sprouts the sweetness from the chestnuts and then the umami on imax from the fish sauce and

the bonito and it is addictive eating and that has been I think one of the most popular dishes on our menu people come back on name drop name drop who's eaten it well the god of vegetables Yotamotolengi said it was it was the best version of brussels sprouts he'd ever eaten which is incredible I mean that I mean how happy look at that smile on your face I'm sorry I'm actually salivating and my stomach is actually rumbling. I do apologise to everybody. If youiccone Proudly, it's a great title, inauthentic recipes from an immigrant. And you're always challenging preconceived notions of how things should be done. Why?

I just think that that is who we are. Culture moves forward. Immigrants, as they move from one place to another, your cuisine naturally adapts. As you settle in a place what once seemed so barren suddenly becomes very fruitful and it's the merging it's the reconciling of your old traditions and what you find in your new land and I think that is what immigrant food is and that's what's so beautiful you love a samosa don't you oh is it that obvious yes I do and your venison samosas

oh my goodness I've been lucky enough to have Ravinda cook for me so tell the audience all about them so I love that idea of mixing something that's a very British tradition so British game and venison and beetroot are such a wonderful combination so I make these samosas with venison mince and we do it with a clove smoked ghee. So lots of spices, lots of things like fennel, nutmeg, again, ginger, garlic, chili to really, and then what we do is we, because venison is a very lean meat, we soak cashew nuts in sort of milk and then puree those. And that gives the samosa this wonderful fattiness that doesn't exist naturally in the venison. And then we serve it with a beetroot chutney, a very spicy beetroot chutney. So it's still a British tradition, venison and beetroot,

but done via an Indian lens. Delicious. Let's bring in an Italian tradition, a panettone. What do you do, which is a type of sweet bread? Lots of people see it around at Christmas. Everyone knows what panettone is, I'm sure now. What do you do with a panettone? So this comes from my days as a beauty journalist. Years and years ago, I'd always end up getting sent lots of panettones.

And there's only so many things you can do with a panettone. So true. There's always loads left by by February I've still got one in the cupboard right yeah they're huge massive and so um what I do is I I and it's a very unusual way uh I make a panzanella which is basically an Italian um salad made with sort of old bread or stale bread, normally plain bread. What I do is I take the panettone, cube it up, and then I make a sage and garlic butter. So infuse lots of chopped sage and garlic into a butter, pour it over the panettone crumbs, lots of parmesan on top, put it in the oven, get that into croutons, and then lots of roasted vegetables and nuts, brussels sprouts, parsnips. This is the season. And then in go those beautiful panettone crumbs that are just so crisp and delicious.

And it's that lovely thing of slightly sweet bread with all these very savoury flavours that just is for Christmas, for a vegetarian. If you've got a vegetarian coming, I mean, I could eat that alone at Christmas and be very happy. Panettone and Parmesan croutons sounds like heaven. Okay. And what about leftovers? What can we do with our roast potatoes or our mash or our bits of turkey? What should we do with them? So, you know, I love parathas. I'm Punjabi. So parathas are basically like the Indian version of a fry up on a Sunday morning. All the sizzle, no bacon and sausages, but still that very seductive sizzle on a pan. And I just take the roast potatoes or any vegetables that are left over, mash them up, mix them with a really good sharp cheddar, some spices,

some coriander, some chili, and then stuff them into these flatbreads and then pan fry them with lots of ghee. And they are delicious, you know, just wonderful. And Ravinda, what will you actually be having on Christmas Day? You've given us all these amazing recipes. What will you cook for yourself? This year, it's just the two of us, just Nadim and I. My in-laws are off to Kenya for Christmas. So I'm not going to do a turkey this year. I might do a quail because I like the idea of a tiny little bird and I love it when they're completely deboned, so no fussing around.

And I like the idea of doing them with very, very lovely things like pomegranate molasses, for example. You do a rub with pomegranate molasses and spices. Use things like quince that are in season. Beautiful, fragrant quince, muscat grapes, all those lovely things. Figs, really festive. Ravinda Bogle making us all salivate there. There'll be more Christmas food ideas on next Friday's Woman's Hour. But before then, you've got a whole week to get through. So do join Emma on Monday from 10. Have a great weekend. I'm Sarah Treleaven. And for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.